Fernando Alonso had his best qualifying session this season in Qatar. In addition, favored by the penalties from Verstappen and Bottas, he started third, a position he managed to maintain in the 57 laps that were given to the Losail track. At 40 , and seven after the last time, Alonso was back on the podium. The only negative is that his closest pursuers in the fight for the Overtake Award , the third title of the season, added more overtakings than he did.
The Overtake Award is an award that has been created in 2021 that will reward the rider who makes the most overtaking in this course. Fernando Alonso had come to Qatar at the top of the standings after breaking his tie with Sebastian Vettel during the Brazilian Grand Prix. While the Overtake Award seemed head-to-head between the two, both have seen Kimi Raikkonen plunge into the title fight in Losail.
During the Qatar Grand Prix, the Finnish driver added no more and no less than eight overtaking, by three by Vettel and two by Fernando Alonso. Fortunately for the Asturian, he remains at the top of the standings with 116 overtaking . However, Sebastian Vettel and Raikkonen have placed one behind the Spaniard with 115 . So the battle for Overtake Awar is between three world champions.
Alonso’s handicap in the fight for the Overtake Award
With two races remaining for the end of the World Cup, Fernando Alonso faces this race with a disadvantage compared to his two rivals. Alpine is fully into the fight for fifth place in the Constructors’ World Cup, so it needs its drivers to qualify as high as possible and score as many points as possible on Sunday. In other words, Alpine needs more races like the Qatar Grand Prix, even though that means for Fernando Alonso to run defensively and, therefore, add less overtaking.
The French team leads AlphaTauri by 25 points and Aston Martin by 60 , the team in which Sebastian Vettel runs. In no man’s land there is also Alfa Romeo , where Kimi Raikkonen does the same. With no option to gain positions or lose them, both riders face the final of the World Championship with greater freedom than Fernando Alonso . They could even change the engine, with the penalty that this entails, to add more overtaking with greater guarantees.
In the event of a tie, the driver who will win the Overtake Award is the one with the best result this season. To date, not even Fernando Alonso with his third place in the Qatar Grand Prix surpasses the second achieved by Vettel in Azerbaijan. Raikkonen, meanwhile, has the slowest car on the grid except for the Haas. Predictably, he will face the last two races from a position further behind than his rivals, which will give him more room for the comeback.
Winning the Overtake Award is undoubtedly an incentive for the 42-year-old , who wants to say goodbye to Formula 1 with a title under his arm. Also for Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel , who want to add an award that they do not have in their brilliant record.
What award will the Overtake Award award?
In the case of the Overtake, he has already wondered what they will give him for winning the Overtake Award . Even so, in the press conference prior to the Qatar Grand Prix, he downplayed the importance of being able to win him. “Well, I would love to be able to go out a little further and not overtake. I need to get a little more information on what the prize will be to push harder in the last three races ”, were his words.
